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1916 
 
2[lje SIttBptrattatt of ttje Hoyal fogiou 
 
 Mr. Commander and Companions of the Loyal Legion : 
 
 What I have to say this evening is not so much his- 
 tory as personal confession. I shall try to tell you what 
 the inspiration of the Loyal Legion is to me, in the hope 
 that I may emphasize its permanent power for good and 
 the responsibilities that rest upon us if we would have 
 it a living influence and not a dead thing, an outworn 
 casket that once ensouled virile men. 
 
 And first of all let us consider whence and how did 
 the Loyal Legion come to be. Personally, I always think 
 of it as the first flower that sprang from the grave of 
 Abraham Lincoln, for his death and its birth bear the 
 date April 15, 1865. It was conceived in that dark hour 
 of grave doubt when no one knew how wide spread was 
 the conspiracy which had murdered our great leader and 
 stricken down high officers of his government. It sprang 
 into life from the high purpose and firm resolve of some 
 of the bravest hearts of the North to make eternal the 
 principles for which Abraham Lincoln, their patron 
 Saint, had lived, suffered and died. 
 
 The tears of the Founders of the Loyal Legion shed 
 at the grave of the martyred President moistened the 
 cradle of this new-born infant. You realize, therefore, 
 that this was not a joyous birth, nor one of elation, but 
 rather one of anguish and sorrow, and of dread uncer- 
 tainties and responsibilities. 
 
 Page Three 
 
The Loyal Legion, to my mind, to-day is the con- 
 crete, crystallized expression of earnest men who hated 
 human slavery, who fought for human rights, who be- 
 lieved in the United States of America as a Union and 
 were determined to perpetuate the high ideals of those 
 States ; of men, who, in the exigencies brought into being 
 by Lincoln's death, pledged anew to the great cause which 
 they, themselves, had helped to win, their lives, their 
 fortunes, and their sacred honors. 
 
 It necessarily follows that our Loyal Legion is no 
 place for triflers and pleasure-seekers, nor is it a club 
 for non-thinking and unpatriotic men, but rather a temple 
 of another kind of men ; for men of high purpose and 
 firm resolve, as its founders were. 
 
 We, the gray-haired, who are living on borrowed 
 time, who have shed our tears at Lincoln's grave and at 
 the cradle of the Loyal Legion ; we, who lived through 
 that fateful 15th day of April, 1865, and who swore by 
 the God of our Country that the principles that we had 
 fought and he had died for should not perish from the 
 Earth, have no need to say whence come to us the In- 
 spiration of the Loyal Legion. 
 
 But you younger members of the Order may well 
 ask, what has this to do with us? We are not our 
 fathers ; we did not share their perils ; we were not of 
 those fateful times ! Save as history, whence comes our 
 inspiration? 
 
 My answer is two-fold. First — it is an axiom of 
 life that man only gets by giving: we, the gray-haired, 
 therefore, give to you of our inspiration : you are by our 
 sides and we share with you our stories of moving acci- 
 
 Page Four 
 
dents by flood and field : we tell you what the spirit of the 
 Loyal Legion is and ever has been to us and impress upon 
 your hearts what we ourselves believe : we point to the 
 Roster of our Order and show you the names of our 
 exalted Companions, now your Companions. We ask 
 you, confidently, is it not something, even now, for you 
 to say, in very truth, I am the Companion of Grant and 
 Sherman and Sheridan and Farragut and Porter, and of 
 the thousands of others who stood by President Lincoln 
 in his dire extremity? To say it, too, in the presence 
 of those who themselves helped make those patriotic 
 names to endure through the ages ? 
 
 And, second — you in your turn give to us of your 
 youth, of your enthusiasm growing out of this union of 
 old and young, this joining of our yesterdays and your 
 to-days, — for we need you as you need us, and, when we 
 pass on, as soon we must, to join the great majority, 
 "those other living, named the dead," you will have mem- 
 ories never to be effaced to pass on as inspiration to your 
 children and your children's children. 
 
 The Commandery of the State of Massachusetts 
 was instituted March 4, 1868 — the fourth of the Great 
 State Commanderies — preceded only by Pennsylvania, 
 New York and Maine. My own election to this Com- 
 mandery was on the 7th day of July, 1868 — my insignia 
 bear the number 853. To-day the number of insignia 
 issued is upwards of 17,000. 
 
 I may be pardoned for making personal allusions 
 in this presence, if only to show that whatever of inspira- 
 tion the Loyal Legion has been to me has lasted through 
 seven and forty years, and in the hope that this mere 
 
 Page Fi've 
 
record of years may stimulate your faith and be accepted 
 by you as proof of the enduring quality of that inspira- 
 tion which burns to-day in my heart more glowingly than 
 ever before, for never more than to-day has our Country 
 needed the service and the inspiration of our great Order. 
 
 In you younger members, I repeat, must center ere 
 long the future of the Loyal Legion. It is your right to 
 receive as it is our privilege to commit to you this sacred 
 flower of our early manhood as your inheritance. As 
 your fathers' sons, we love you; and as your fathers' 
 sons, we trust you ; and while we are permitted we shall 
 stand by your side, to advise and encourage ; to sustain 
 and inspire you. 
 
 Does anyone of you ask how long will this organiza- 
 tion endure? I answer — just so long as the members of 
 it are true to the principles of the founders and no longer. 
 When we and you and your successors cease to be true 
 to those principles, this Loyal Legion, which carries an 
 inspiration in its very name, should cease to be. 
 
 And this leads us directly to the vital question — what 
 were those principles of the founders? What was and 
 is their significance? 
 
 They were two in number and only two embodied in 
 the Constitution of the Order, Belief in God, Fidelity to 
 Country. 
 
 These two principles are the simplest and the most 
 far-reaching principles that man has to-day, or has had, 
 or will have so long as man endures. The essence of the 
 one is of divine conception. Belief in God is the founda- 
 tion of human progress and of individual growth and 
 character, and a true understanding of its limitless scope 
 
 Page Six 
 
rests on contemplation. Fidelity to Country deals with 
 the complexities of life in an organized community; it 
 shifts its point of view to meet the ever-changing condi- 
 tions of organized, political life, but never changes its 
 character. 
 
 These two principles, Belief in God, Fidelity to 
 Country, are basic. They are not shibboleths, nor war 
 cries ; they are not mere declarations ; they are the essence 
 of the Infinite; they are to be lived. They are of man's 
 bone and sinew; the breath of his nostrils; the very 
 mainsprings of his daily, hourly thought and act. They 
 are the soul — the ultimate you. 
 
 You remember when Oliver Cromwell was asked 
 how he expected to make his hinds the equals in battle 
 of those who had loyalty to the King in their hearts, 
 he flashed back the answer, "By putting into the hearts 
 of these hinds a greater thing than loyalty to a King 
 and that is loyalty to the Great God Almighty, the King 
 of Kings !" Hence came the Ironsides. 
 
 Do we not recognize in our daily lives the difference 
 between the man who believes in God and the man who 
 only says he does? Between the man who simply talks 
 true allegiance and fidelity to his Country and the man 
 who is faithful to it? 
 
 The thought of the real man is of service to God and 
 his Country. He does not substitute for patriotism the 
 contemptible and degrading question, — where do I come 
 in? To him — devotion to God, to Country, are mani- 
 festations on earth of the Fatherhood of God and the 
 Brotherhood of Man. His brotherhood begins at home. 
 It must begin there, but it does not end there. His loyal- 
 
 Page Seven 
 
ty to God and Country is one whole and entire thing and 
 knows no division ; he knows no half-hearted allegiance. 
 He does not worship God and the Devil. He does not 
 hate and injure his neighbor to prove his universal broth- 
 erhood. 
 
 This is the ultimate, the enduring inspiration of the 
 Loyal Legion as I interpret it. On these two principles, 
 belief in God and unswerving allegiance and devotion to 
 the United States of America, this Order is built, and 
 every other purpose is subordinate to them. 
 
 The great Library ; the great Museum of Memora- 
 bilia of the Civil War you have gathered together, attest 
 the spirit of inspired service which has animated many, 
 but one man (Colonel Arnold A. Rand) above all others, 
 to perpetuate the inspiration and name of the Command- 
 ery of Massachusetts and its pre-eminent place in the 
 Order. 
 
 It is for you and for me and for our successors to 
 say shall this organization endure? Shall our fidelity to 
 God and to Country proclaim that we are in very truth 
 a Loyal Legion? Shall we not pledge ourselves anew 
 here and now that whenever our Country calls upon her 
 sons, for unselfish service, for absolute fidelity, for un- 
 questioning devotion, she will not call in vain on those 
 who carry in their hearts the inspiration of the Loyal 
 Legion ? 
 
 HENRY M. ROGERS. 
 
 Pagg Eight 
 
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 89 
 

 
 
 
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 NOV 89 
 
 N. MANCHESTER. 
 iS^ INDIANA 46962 
 
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